ed and the South Gate is in
ruins. Entering and turning to the left, we ascend a little hill and
find the Temple (perhaps dedicated to Artemis), and close beside it the
great South Theatre. There is hardly a break in the semicircular stone
benches, thirty-two rows of seats rising tier above tier, divided into
an upper and a lower section by a broader row of "boxes" or stalls,
richly carved, and reserved, no doubt, for magnates of the city and
persons of importance. The stage, over a hundred feet wide, is backed by
a straight wall adorned with Corinthian columns and decorated niches.
The theatre faces due north; and the spectator sitting here, if the play
wearies him, can lift his eyes and look off beyond the proscenium over
the length and breadth of Gerasa.

"But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then,
All the men!"

In the hollow northward from this theatre is the Forum, or the
Market-place, or the Hippodrome--I cannot tell what it is, but a
splendid oval of Ionic pillars incloses an open space of more than three
hundred feet in length and two hundred and fifty feet in width, where
the Gerasenes may barter or bicker or bet, as they will.

From the Forum to the North Gate runs the main street, more than half a
mile long, lined with a double row of columns, from twenty to thirty
feet high, with smooth shafts and acanthus capitals. At the intersection
of the cross-streets there are tetrapylons, with domes, and pedestals
for statues. The pavement of the roadway is worn into ruts by the
chariot wheels. Under the arcades behind the columns run the sidewalks
for foot-passengers. Turn to the right from the main street and you come
to the Public Baths, an immense building like a palace, supplied with
hot and cold water, adorned with marble and mosaic. On the left lies the
Tribuna, with its richly decorated facade and its fountain of flowing
water. A few yards farther north is the Propylaeum of the Great Temple; a
superb gateway, decorated with columns and garlands and shell niches,
opening to a wide flight of steps by which we ascend to the temple-area,
a terrace nearly twice the size of Madison Square Garden, surrounded by
two hundred and sixty columns, and standing clear above the level of the
encircling city.

The Temple of t